Mark Obama Ndesandjo, Barack Obama’s half brother says that when the two first met in Kenya in 1988, “Barack thought I was too white, and I thought he was too black.” Hmm, interesting that Barack Obama looked at things in a black and white perspective. Mark Obama Ndesandjo recounts his sporadic but intense encounters with his brother over the years and the alcohol-fueled domestic abuse he experienced under Barack Obama Sr in his book,“Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery.”

In an interview with AP, President Obama’s half-brother, Mark Obama Ndesandjo, described his relationship with his brother as “cold” and stated that when the two first met in Kenya in 1988, “Barack thought I was too white, and I thought he was too black.

AP conducted the interview as a lead up to Ndesandjo’s autobiography that, in part, highlights the alcohol-fueled domestic abuse he experienced under Barack Obama Sr.

As in his first book, Ndesandjo wanted to raise awareness of domestic abuse by using his family’s story, although he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that the president’s relatives have not universally welcomed his airing of private matters in public. Ndesandjo spoke ahead of a news conference to launch the book in Guangzhou on Thursday.

The book also touches on the “sporadic but intense encounters” with his half-brother, Barack, a relationship Ndesandjo describes as currently “cold”:

Alcohol-fueled domestic abuse he experienced under Barack Obama Sr? Maybe Barack Obama’s book should have been ‘Dreams Alcohol-fueled domestic abuse of my Father?’

Mark Obama Ndesandjo, who is several years younger than the President, described their father as a brilliant man. But he was also an alcoholic, a “social failure” and an abusive husband, he said.

“I remember the sounds of my mothers’ screams and I remember the sounds of breaking, things breaking,” he told CNN. “And I remember that I couldn’t protect her. That’s something that no child ever forgets.”

He said he especially remembered a violent episode when he was 6 or 7.

“My father actually broke — came in the door, against the restraining order, and held a knife to my mother’s throat,” he said.